Live vs Pre match betting strategies

There are two main betting methods in sports betting: pre match bets, where bookmakers present their odds, and live bets for on going matches. Both styles are right and make part of bettors path to be successful in sports betting. From a sports betting psychological point of view, patience and discipline are two crucial aspects for any bettor to be successful in this industry and gives them the chance to quickly make bets more profitable.

How to extract value on your live bets

The live bets are one of the best ways to counter bookmakers’ initial odds. Consider the match between Chelsea v Man. United:

The Man. United win pays £2.90 for each pound sterling stake, while the Chelsea win pays £1.35. Of course you can bet on Chelsea, because your sports analysis tells you to, and then you will have to wait for the end of the match to check if your guess was right. However, the initial odd of £1.35 is not that much appealing, especially considering that Man. United is a tremendous strong team and will also create numerous opportunities, whereby at the half time the match could be very even. The half time comes and the result is 1-1, the Chelsea win is now at £1.65. Let’s then check what we did in the example above:

You analyzed the match and concluded that Chelsea win was paying a low value;

You proven to be clever enough by not betting on the bookmaker’s pre match odds;

By waiting for the half time, you get plus £0.30 for each £1 stake, and a 26% high odd in case of winning;

While a bettor, you managed to rise your pre match initial odds from £1.35 up to £1.65.

What if your Chelsea odds decreased at the half time to £1.15, if Barcelona was winning by 1-0 at the half time? Well, that makes part of gambling. When betting on live you can face these situations and not always make your odds rise. However, you made a detailed match analysis, not freely risking pre match odds and keeping calm enough to try to extract the maximum value of your sports betting.

Pre match VS live bets

Understand the betting methods differences is crucial to get the best possible results. The next items mentioned below must be considered when you need to decide whether it is best to wait for a match to start or to bet on live.

Will you add more value to your bet, waiting for the match to start?

How strong will your favourite team begins the match or perform in the first half?

Are there several external events able to make the market odds quickly vary?

How strong and competitive is the opponent and how does that can bias the live bets?

These are the questions and most relevant scenarios to keep in mind in your sports betting. The more you try to understand a match from different points of view, the more you will benefit.

The difference between using a live bet strategy versus a pre match bet, basically resumes to you and to your match analysis. Also don’t forget that no betting expert can be 100% sure about all match features before its starts. The most relevant fact is to learn from the mistakes and tuning up the match analysis process.

Practical example

Lets consider the following Premier League example, where it would be possible to find an extra live bet value, since odds pre match odds were not quite significant.

In this example, for the pre match strategy, the Bet365 website presented the Atl Madrid win for 4.33, 3.75 for draw and 1.75 for Barcelona to win. Supposing you have analyzed the match and concluded that Barcelona was clearly the favourite to win the match, and odds could slightly rise on live. By guessing this and after analyzing the match in detail, you decided to wait for the match to start, and then bet on Barcelona to win.

At the 10′ the match was still draw and the odds for Barcelona to win rose to 1.95, which means you would win more £0,25 for each £1 stake, thus this means you would be able to take advantage of the Bet365 In-Play system by not betting on a pre match option. Keeping this in mind, it is important to understand that it is crucial to follow match’s events to better realize if Barcelona truly had the capability of win the match, otherwise you would lose the bet.

Always analyze your bets as objective and concrete as possible and, whenever possible follow the match and its events, in order to better understand if your option is aligned with these same exact events. If the match shows that your option is not viable or you don’t feel sure enough that your bet may drop, therefore you shouldn’t bet. However and as an example, you would rise the odds up to £2.00, meaning, an increase of £0.25, which would clearly increase your profits.

Conclusion

The most important fact to succeed using this strategy is to analyze in detail the pre match, the practical methodology and the structure involved in your decision making process. You will not always get the best value for your bet preview, however the most important fact is your strategy to work and generate the wished profits. If you are not capable of getting full advantage of this strategy and correctly analyze matches, we recommend you to extend your knowledge and look to better understand the sports betting nature, mainly through some who truly is an expert. We obviously recommend you to read our sports betting tutorials.

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About the Sports Betting

We are a website dedicated to the world of online sports betting, established in September 2008, aimed at helping each and every user who wants to learn more about sports betting, how bookmakers work, and what the best tips and strategies to apply on a sporting event, be it a football game, a tennis game, or a horse race. Regardless of the sport they like best, there are numerous strategies and recommendations to be taken into account when the objective is to make the most out of your bets, and logically make money from it.